This blog contains all my media, marketing and digital columns written for the Eastern Daily Press newspaper, the biggest selling regional morning newspaper in England. I hope you enjoy.

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

John Lewis, a bear, a hare and a lesson in advertising

Well that is Christmas done for
another year and decorations are being taken down across the land. Although
retailers are already at the tail end of the January sales the inquisition into
Christmas performances has already started.

In some cases it is not good news.
Debenhams has issued a profit warning stating same store sales for the 17 weeks
to 28 December increased 0.1%, below expectations. Although you could blame part
of this on a forgettable Christmas marketing campaign, the real blame lies with
the increased pressure on early discounting.

Way before the usual Boxing Day
sales started, many big name high street brands slashed prices and introduced
flash sales in an attempt to gain footfall and sales. French Connection, New
Look, M&S, House of Fraser and Boots all used discounting, offering up to 50
per cent cuts to entice shoppers. Unfortunately when one does, the rest are
often forced to follow.

Both John Lewis and House of Fraser
though have posted strong results. John Lewis enjoyed a 6.9% increase in sales
with sales from its website accounting for almost a third of its total income
over the festive period.

John Lewis credited the bear and
hare television campaign as a key driver of this growth. The £7m campaign (£1m
on the production of the ad alone) was launched like a movie premiere and
garnered press coverage like it was. It was watched 11.5m times on YouTube
alone. However as well as the ad itself you could also buy toys of the
characters, a book telling the story (which became its best selling children’s
title over Christmas), chocolate, slippers and of course the alarm clock itself.
The soundtrack even went to number 1 in the charts.

Not everyone has £7m to spend on a
campaign but it helped deliver sales of £734m over 5 weeks. John Lewis managed
that rare trick of creating a multi-channel event from a simple creative idea.
Rather than just creating a TV campaign they created a whole world for people to
be part of, share and purchase. I suspect next year we will see similar from the
other high street retailers still left.

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About Me

My name is Tim Youngman, I am director of marketing for a regional newspaper group in the UK.
This blog contains the columns I write on media, marketing and technology for the Eastern Daily Press newspaper in the UK www.edp24.co.uk England's largest selling regional morning newspaper.
You can find our more about me here:
www.linkedin.com/in/timyoungman
and follow me on twitter @timyoungman